**UPDATE – Gowalla has been purchased by Facebook and the service will shut down at the end of January, 2012** 

Gowalla is a location-based app that, until last week, shared a lot of similarities with Foursquare – the leading location-based app today. First launched about two and a half years ago, Gowalla has steadily grown to an active user-base of two million (about one fifth the number of users that Foursquare has). I’ve always liked Gowalla and I think they have a better interface and user experience than Foursquare, but there have always been so few people in Indiana who use Gowalla.

Just last week, Gowalla released a brand new version of their website and mobile app (iOS version here and Android version here) that really rebrands Gowalla. Rather than focusing on being a location-based check-in network (and, honestly, they were losing that fight to Foursquare. Even Facebook recently gave up on Places - their equivalent check-in service), Gowalla now seems to be more of a curated location guide app. If that sounds kind of weird, keep reading.

In the image above, you can see the new curated guide for the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, IN. By working with staff at Notre Dame, Gowalla put together a great guide showcasing what visitors to the university needed to check out while they are in town. There are more than 60 curated guides available for cities throughout the world and Gowalla is working to add dozens more soon. While Gowalla has worked with select cities and destinations to create these branded and curated guides, you can still create guides on your own, both as an individual and as a DMO.

When looking at the tourism industry as a whole, there are benefits to using both Foursquare and Gowalla. If you own or work at a hotel, attraction or a restaurant, Foursquare makes more sense as they allow users to manage venues they own and offer check-in specials. But, if you work for a city, county, regional or state DMO Gowalla probably actually makes more sense to use. As a DMO, you have the built-in authority about your area and you can create great guides for anything you want – wine trails, food trails, museum guides, historic sites and more. When you create guides for your visitors, you’ve putting your stamp of authority on the guide and letting them know which things they absolutely must do before leaving your location.

Have you ever used Gowalla or Foursquare? Do you think Gowalla’s new curated guides functionality would be helpful as a visitor to a new place?

Welcome to our series of interviews with local (and sometimes national) leaders in the social media and technology industry that will be featured on Social Mediarology. Today’s interview is with Troy Thompson of Travel 2.0, a Denver-based blog and digital consulting company focused on the travel and tourism industry

Troy Thompson – Travel 2.0

Troy has been involved in interactive marketing for the past 13 years. After starting his career at NASCAR in Florida, he was integral in launching their interactive department in the late ’90s. After nearly a decade with NASCAR, Troy moved to Arizona to become the Advertising Manager for the Arizona Office of Tourism. During his time at AOT, Troy headed up the social media division and recently moved to Denver to manage Visit Denver‘s interactive marketing department, including social media, mobile, SEO and more. Earlier this year he decided to break out on his own and dive into tourism technology consulting.

The Travel 2.0 blog started while Troy worked for Arizona Tourism as regular email updates about interactive marketing to the AOT staff and quickly evolved into a blog that could reach people far beyond the Arizona Office of Tourism. Now, thousands of people throughout the world read the Travel 2.0 blog each week and Troy is considered a thought leader in the interactive travel and tourism community.

The consulting arm of Travel 2.0 launched in June, 2010 and focuses on social media strategy/social media audits, mobile strategy including iPhone applications, statistical analysis, training and tourism marketing plan development.

What are some current and upcoming trends in the travel industry as it relates to technology?

The two trends we’re in right now that are still progressing are mobile and location based services (LBS). They certainly go hand in hand, but mobile feels a lot like it did in the late ’90s and early 2000s, when everyone realized the web wasn’t going away so they started to shift more budget and create functional websites. I see this a lot within the mobile space. It’s following a very similar pattern where people are saying "I think this mobile thing is going to stick around, I think the iPhone is going to be a solid platform to build on" and they’re shifting some dollars over to address that need. The challenge is that you don’t want to fall into the same trap we all did when we built our first websites – looking for the cheaper option, just doing the basics and not thinking long term. I think a lot of us built a website in 10 years ago and have had to rebuild the site every couple of years, and I think we’re now getting to the point where people are thinking more long term and more strategically about what the site is and what it needs to be. I’m hopeful that we’ll start to take that same approach with mobile – thinking long term rather than short term. While I think there will be a lot of transition within the mobile space in the next decade or so, building a good base at the beginning will help set you up for success in the long run.

As far as location-based services go, Foursquare seems to be the media darling of LBS.

If 2009 was Twitter’s year, it’s fair to say that 2010 is shaping up to be the year of Foursquare. I think with the recent launch of Facebook Places, LBS’s will just become more important, particularly for the travel industry.

The fact that you’ll be able to have geographic information about your visitor while they’re in your area becomes very powerful. Right now, while the tools aren’t there to completely take advantage of that, those tools will surely come about soon. Taking advantage of a one-on-one communication with someone visiting your local Art Museum will be just as easy as setting up an email campaign or a Google Adwords campaign.

The final trend I’m seeing is tracking. It’s been the big demand of everyone, not just within the travel industry, but everyone who’s been involved in the mobile or social media field. How do we track all of these these things and connect the dots between websites, SEO, mobile marketing, social media marketing, and how do we get the accurate tracking to be able to quantify the ROI that we’re putting into these new spaces. I feel like that’s coming along. It depends on how much information the consumer wants to give out about themselves, but I think that’s an area where we’ll see some more big strides over the next two or three years.

(more…)

Here are some great posts from the past week about social media:

1: The Ultimate List: 300+ Social Media Statistics | Hubspot

Social Mediarology thinks: While this is a somewhat dated list (May, 2010) there’s still a wealth of information to be found here. My favorite stat: Nearly 30% of all link sharing is done via Facebook (24%) and Twitter (10.8%).

2: Old Spice Sales Double with YouTube Campaign | Mashable

Social Mediarology thinks: The old economists’ adage that “correlation does not equal causation” is certainly true in this case, but you can’t argue that the campaign has contributed to sales. If nothing else, it created a tremendous amount of brand awareness.

3: Google Introduces Location-Aware Mobile Display Ads | TechCrunch

Social Mediarology thinks: This could be huge for any tourism-related business. Attractions, hotels, restaurants, etc. This brings the location-awareness of apps like Foursquare to the general public.

4: 5 Critical Web Metrics to Keep a Close Eye On | ReadWriteWeb

Social Mediarology thinks: These are five great metrics. Some related to your website, some to Facebook and some to Twitter. Do you notice you have more Daily Active Uses on Facebook when you ask questions? Post more? Offer discounts? Check out the insights for your Facebook Fan Page at Facebook.com/Insights and unclick Total Likes to get a better look at your Daily Active Users.

Bonus! Here’s a fifth story you should check out from this week:

5: The Time for Foursquare Marketing is…Later? [STUDY] | Mashable

Social Mediarology thinks: We’ve been talking about Foursquare a lot lately and so have many other people. Mashable reports that

Only 4% of the adult, Internet-using population has used any kind of location-based service, and just 1% of all adults check into a location at least once a week.

While that’s true, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t at least think about integrating Foursquare into your marketing efforts. Especially if your target demographic is more likely to have a Foursquare account.

A few days ago I wrote about how to get started on Foursquare, but today, I want to show you how to use Foursquare as an organization. There are many benefits for organizations to get involved in Foursquare and tourism entities of all types – restaurants, hotels, attractions, Destination Marketing Organizations (DMOs) and more – can benefit the most.

In our increasingly connected and mobile world, visitors to your destination are using printed guides less and less and are relying on the internet, social media and their mobile devices more and more. While Foursquare is still used primarily by early adopters, new users are signing up every day – especially as people begin to realize how they can benefit from using Foursquare.

Claim Your Business:

Check out this post for more information about how to get started with Foursquare, but once you’ve created an account and are signed in, do a quick search for your organization. Once you’ve found it, click on Are you the manager of this business? Once here, you’ll need to copy and paste a link to your business on Yelp, Google Maps or a similar service. If your organization isn’t listed on any of those services, you can also fill out your name, email address and phone number and a Foursquare team member will be in touch to verify that you are, indeed, the manager of that business.

Why do you need to claim your business? If you don’t claim your business, you won’t get access to back-end analytics (click on the image to the left for a closer view) and you won’t be able to create a special offer at your location. Starbucks gives mayors at each individual store $1 off Frappuccinos and Scotty’s Brewhouse (with locations in Indianapolis, Bloomington, Muncie and West Lafayette, Indiana) offers a 10% discount to ANYONE who checks in during lunch (Mon-Fri).

Create Your Special:

Once you’ve claimed your business you can set up specials for people who check-in at your location. Foursquare actually offers quite a range of different ways to set up your offers. You can offer discounts to Mayors only, like Starbucks, or you can offer discounts to anyone who checks in, like Scotty’s. You can also offer a special to customers who visit a certain number of times within a set time period (ex. Free Coffee if you check-in 3 times in 1 month). You also have the choice to offer a special on every X check-in (ex. 5% off your bill on every 5th check-in). The final, and most flexible, option is to offer a special to a customer dependent on whatever you choose (ex. Free burger if you check-in during the NFL season and are wearing a Colts jersey). You can also offer more than one special at a time. This kind of targeting allows you to decide which kind of offer works best for your business.

In fact, Foursquare recently blogged about the successes that some businesses have seen since implementing Foursquare Specials.

Promote your Special:

Now that you have claimed your business and you have a special up for customers, you have to let people know about it! Promote the special through Facebook, Twitter and your blog. Put it in an email letting people know you want them to check-in when they get to your location. You can even fill out this form to request a window cling to put in your storefront. You can also download this pdf that you can print out and hang in your store.

Get creative, think of other ways you can promote your new Foursquare Special and make sure to keep track of your redemption rate. With the analytics available as a manager of a location on Foursquare, you can see who has checked in to your location, when they checked in and how frequently they check-in. Keep a close eye on those metrics to make sure you’re getting the most out of Foursquare.

I’ve written about Foursquare, the most popular location-based social media game, a couple of times before, but I wanted to write about how to actually get started with Foursquare. How to create your account, how to connect your mobile phone and how to get started checking in.

What is Foursquare?

Foursquare's Newbie Badge

First of all, a brief explanation of Foursquare. Foursquare is a location-based social media game that allows you to check-in at different locations when they’re out and about. You earn points for each time you check in at a location and you can also unlock custom badges that tell your friends about some of the things you’ve done. If you check in at a particular location more often than anyone else, you’re considered the Mayor of that location.

Friends that follow you on Foursquare will see where you’ve checked in and, who knows, maybe they’ll join you at the coffee shop while you’re relaxing there in the evening. You can also leave tips at each location when you check in. Want to let your friends know about the appetizer they should order at the new restaurant in town or let them know where the best place to park for a Colts game is? Leave a tip and anyone on Foursquare can view it.

Still confused? Here’s a quick video from HowCast that explains Foursquare in a nutshell:

Why should I use Foursquare?

Part of the reason to use Foursquare is the same reason you use any other social media platform; to connect with people you know. The difference with Foursquare is that you’re broadcasting what you’re doing while you’re doing it and you can see what your friends are up to at the same time. Foursquare’s real benefit becomes apparent when you’re in a new city. Are you in Chicago for a conference and looking for a place to eat dinner? Fire up Foursquare to see what the locals recommend. By checking in and leaving tips at the places you frequent, you could provide just the help a visitor is looking for.

Create An Account:

Creating your Foursquare account is simple. Go to Foursquare.com and click on the big Join Now button. Fill out the standard account information; name, email, current location, etc. then head to the next step. You can easily add your Twitter or Facebook friends who already have Foursquare accounts and you can invite other friends who haven’t yet signed up for Foursquare.

Connect Your Phone:

Now that you’ve got a Foursquare account, you need to connect it to your mobile phone. Foursquare makes this very easy if you have a smartphone (iPhone, Blackberry, Palm or an Android-based phone). Simply visit Foursquare.com on your mobile device and download the app for your phone. The Foursquare apps available for each mobile device are simple and easy to use, just fire them up and enter your login information to get started.There are also a host of other applications that allow you to check in with Foursquare, but the easiest thing is to download the official Foursquare app for your phone.

If you don’t have a smartphone but you can access the internet on your phone, you can still check-in by visiting m.foursquare.com. If you don’t have a smartphone or a web-enabled phone, it’s time for you to upgrade . Seriously, though, you can check in by sending a text message if your phone can’t connect to the internet.

Start Checking In:

Now that you’ve downloaded your Foursquare app, you can start checking in at your favorite locations. Load your Foursquare app and start checking in and leaving tips. If you’re don’t have a web-enabled phone, you can still check in via text. Send a text message to 50500 (like this: @ Ace Bar ! Playing skeeball)

Microsoft just announced that Bing Maps is undergoing a spate of upgrades this spring. Among the most exciting for those in the tourism industry is Bing’s optional Foursquare layer. It seems that much like FourWhere, which I talked about in my last post, the Foursquare layer of Bing Maps will provide the user with real-time data that will allow you to see user’s tips as well as “who has unlocked specific badges, where and who has been crowned mayor of certain locations making it easier to explore any city in the world as if you were a local” (Bing.com).

While the Foursquare App isn’t live for everyone just yet, you can visit Maps.Bing.com and click on the Map Apps button (If you can’t see the button, click on Try It Now within the Explore the new Bing Maps button on the left side of the page) and load up their Twitter App to get a feel for how the Foursquare App will work. This kind of integration of location and user generated content is invaluable for tourism. Imagine you’re planning a trip to the Seattle’s Queen Anne neighborhood; simply point your browser to Bing Maps, load up the Foursquare App and you can plan your trip confident that you’re getting suggestions from the people who frequent the attractions, hotels and restaurants in the area.